OKC Thunder 'Worst Mistake' According to ESPN Hardly a Misstep

The Oklahoma City Thunder have seen ESPN tab the 2020-21 NBA Draft has the Thunder's worse mistake of this decade, it was hardly a misstep.

Dec 2, 2023; Dallas, Texas, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder forward Aleksej Pokusevski (17) warms up before the game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Oklahoma City Thunder at the American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

No team is perfect. Not even the Oklahoma City Thunder, who have put together a roster good enough to not only capture its first championship in team history but rattle off 68 wins in the regular season.

This was a process for the Bricktown Ballers that started with top executive Sam Presti pulling the plug on an underperforming core headlined by Franchise pillar Russell Westbrook and Paul George, who finished third in NBA MVP voting in 2018.

As Oklahoma City shipped Westbrook to Houston and George to L.A., the Thunder were left with a historic haul of draft assets as well as eventual superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

After a spunky 2019-20 season, the rebuild officially began in Oklahoma City. The Thunder shipped out the likes of Chris Paul, Danilo Gallinari, Steven Adams and anything that wasn't bolted down and began to reload a roster centered around Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort.

In the 2020 NBA Draft, the Oklahoma City Thunder traded up to select Aleksej Pokusevski with the No. 17 pick in the class. The seven-foot center lasted just four years in the NBA before being shipped to Charlotte at the 2024 NBA Trade Deadline and fading out of the league that summer.

While this was a bad pick and provided little value on the hardwood for OKC, it was a calculated risk where the odds always suggested things would play out this way. A dud of a player at a time when the Thunder wanted to lose games. They didn't need contributors or high-floor prospects; Oklahoma City needed high upside gaudy swings.

This summer, ESPN has put together the biggest mistakes of all 30 teams in the 2020s. The World Wide Leader posted the Thunder in tier four, "Draft Disasters," coming in as the 23rd worst mistake this decade. A bit harsh considering the offense.

Meanwhile, in tier five's "small-scale problems," decisions such as not trading Lauri Markkannen for the heading nowhere fast Utah Jazz are shoved aside as small in scale rather than a disastrous decision for a failing franchise.

ESPN tabs the decision to trade Alprene Sengun, Immanuel Quickley and Jaden McDaniels on draft night as puzzling to net back the likes of Ousmane Dieng, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Pokusevski. The problem is, this isn't an either-or thing. Context and nuance are needed.

Sengun is a better player than both Pokusevski and Dieng, which needs no explanation. Though he doesn't truly fit the Thunder's system, and the timing of investing in the high upside center wasn't right for OKC during that draft, with another tanking year on the horizon and Chet Holmgren standing as the biggest prize.

A core of Josh Giddey, Sengun and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander retroactively isn't likely to land Holmgren and sets OKC down a path for a worse future while taking calculated swings on Pokusevski and Dieng that everyone was comfortable missing on.

At the surface level, everyone loves to do redrafts and just rank the players as it relates to draft order. Or grade a draft-day trade without the context of the moment. It wasn't as though the Thunder would be able to secure Sengun, Quickley and Daniels while still putting themselves in position to have a core of Holmgren, Jalen Williams and company. The butterfly effect is important here.

Though, if you just had to pick a mistake for the sake of this argument, I hear you. This was an on paper misstep. Though, categorizing it as a disaster while a move as important as the Jazz forgetting to set itself up for future success by trading Markkanen at peak value on a losing team is cast aside is a little puzzling.